Tearaway turned 'traitor': The trials of Martin McCague

Martin McCague has lost count of the number of times he's been called a traitor.

At the height of the public storm that surrounded his short Test career, he was called much worse.

Judas. Imposter. And infamously in one Sydney newspaper, the rat who joined the sinking ship.

From the controversy that swirled around him in two short Ashes campaigns in the 1990s, there's one moment McCague remembers vividly, one last parting shot on what turned out to be his final day as an England cricketer.

With a busted shin, a broken spirit and his career at a crossroads, McCague was waiting for a taxi one evening in Sydney, just a short drive away from his hotel room and the promise that the end of his Ashes nightmare was just one sleep away.

As an empty cab approached, he leaned down to peer through the open window on the passenger side, and was met with one final insult.

"I'm not having a traitor in my car," barked the driver.

"Bugger off, mate. You can walk home."

Image Id: 628D171B229E4160939B96D5EFC7713A Image Caption: Martin McCague in full flight // Getty

More than a quarter of a century later, McCague doesn't harbour any bitterness about how he was treated; by that cab driver, the media, the literally hundreds of people who abused him to his face, the England officials who he says 'threw him under the bus', or the teammate who all but accused him of faking injury and illness in the middle of an Ashes campaign.

His career and eventually his life have long moved past his short time in Test cricket, and the controversy that followed him is now just a part of his story.

But his experience has left a mark.

"It was harsh on me," he tells cricket.com.au.

"I'm a big bloke, but when I got to Australia for the Ashes … the attitude of just the Australian people walking down the road (left me thinking) 'Wow – am I going to get this for the whole tour?'.

"I became thick-skinned to it. But, eventually, it does wear you down."

***

McCague had always been somewhat of an outsider.

Before he was old enough to remember, his family fled The Troubles in Northern Ireland and ended up as far away from Belfast as possible, eventually settling in Port Hedland, a remote mining town on Australia's west coast.

He threw himself into sport as a child and as he developed into a tall, barrel-chested teenager, it was Australian Rules football – not cricket – that he dreamed of playing at the highest level.

By the age of 19, his cricket experience had consisted of indoor games with friends and summers in the backyard with his younger brother. But when he was convinced to tag along to a WACA coaching clinic and given the chance to bowl with a proper red ball for the first time, word quickly reached the big smoke about the raw, untapped fast bowler from the Pilbara, and an extraordinary sequence of events was set in motion.

Image Id: E19A508BBB2A4FD3BB998ECE6E044987 Image Caption: McCague dreamed of a professional football career and was a late bloomer in cricket // WACA Museum

Three days later, McCague got a call from North Perth Cricket Club with an offer to play in the 1988-89 season, his first summer of organised club cricket. Then, having shown some promise with his new team, he was entered into the annual Gestetner fast-bowling competition, a nationwide search for the quickest young bowler in the land, with the winner given a spot at the newly-established Australian Cricket Academy.

Barely four months after that coaching clinic in Port Hedland, McCague won the Gestetner final during the lunch break of that summer's SCG Test and, later that year, joined the nation's best young cricketers in Adelaide.

Still clinging to his dream of playing Aussie Rules at the top level, he was almost a footballer in the cricket system, playing and training with the likes of Michael Slater, Michael Bevan and Brendon Julian – an old friend from Port Hedland – at the Academy.

In 1990, having been offered the chance to play club cricket in Melbourne – which he accepted partly to chase further opportunities in football – he impressed enough that he was handed his Sheffield Shield debut for Western Australia, against Victoria at the Junction Oval. He took five wickets in his debut innings, including Simon O'Donnell and a young Darren Lehmann, and remembers chatting with another failed footballer who was also making his debut – a chubby leg-spinner in the Victorian side named Shane Keith Warne.

Image Id: 3249D64366C44655A59571FFE65E4E42 Image Caption: McCague (front row, second from left) at the Academy. Brendon Julian is on his left, Michael Slater (third from left) and Michael Bevan (fourth from right) are in the back row

But just as McCague's cricket career started to take off, it stalled. WA already had pace stars Terry Alderman and Bruce Reid as well as young guns like Julian and Jo Angel on their list, so he struggled to win a regular spot in their Shield side over the next two seasons.

Recognising the obstacles in Perth, WA coach Daryl Foster urged McCague to join him at UK county side Kent for the 1991 and 1992 seasons, where he signed as a local player thanks to his British heritage. It was there that McCague finally started to thrive; one of the faster bowlers on the county circuit, he took 69 wickets at 27 across two solid seasons while off the field, he met the woman he would eventually marry.

At the end of the 1992 English summer, at the age of 23, he was at a fork in the road. He could return to Perth as an amateur, look for a job after six months out of the workforce and try again to force his way into the WA side. Or he could stay in England with his future wife and accept the full-time, three-year professional contract that Kent had offered him at season's end, worth more than four times what he could earn in Perth.

Image Id: 99CF7488CC194265A220057055CE799C Image Caption: A young Martin McCague before he moved to Kent // WACA Museum

Dreaming of financial security for the first time in his life, it was an easy decision to make; he told Western Australia's selectors he wasn't coming back, said goodbye to his old life and started a new one in the country of his birth.

And just nine months later, the England selectors called.

***

It was a roll of the dice made by men in powerful positions, well above his pay grade. But when McCague was a surprise selection by England for the third Ashes Test at Trent Bridge, just 15 months after his last game for Western Australia, an Anglo-Australian war of words began.

Neither McCague nor England had broken any rules. As a British passport holder, he qualified under the eligibility criteria at the time, despite spending 90 per cent of his life on the other side of the world.

And given England had lost seven consecutive Tests and were already 2-0 down in that 1993 Ashes series, and with McCague one of the few genuinely fast bowlers in the county system, the home side's selectors took a gamble.

The reaction was swift.

Graham Halbish, the then CEO of the Australian Cricket Board, immediately called for a rule change at ICC level, saying of McCague: "We have invested in him and ... want a return on our investment".

Australia's captain Allan Border said the selections of McCague and his new-ball partner Andy Caddick – who had spent the first 20 years of his life in New Zealand before he too had relocated to England – 'took the gloss off' the prestige of an Ashes Test.

But while the angst in the Australian camp was directed at the game's eligibility rules more than McCague himself, the Australian media played the man.

He was labelled a ring-in and a traitor, and England's selectors were accused of turning their side into the United Nations, while Sydney's Daily Telegraph-Mirror opted for a line that would forever be associated with McCague's name: 'The rat who joined the sinking ship'.

Image Id: 7A631919F5A14E57924785C0628FE18B Image Caption: McCague celebrates his first Test wicket // Getty

His selection even entered Australian popular culture; in a sketch for The Late Show, comedian Mick Molloy labelled McCague 'Judas' and 'A no-good, double-crossing, back-stabbing traitor' in his irreverent 'Mick's Serve' segment.

"The Australian media were very, very coarse," McCague remembers. "It was pretty brutal.

"I just remember there being so much media around me. There were four other debutants for England in that match, but everything was focused on me. It was crazy.

"I didn't really want to do too much (media), but I would get led out to do a photo here, a photo there. The sponsors wanted some stuff, and you'd obviously have to do it. Holding a boxing kangaroo with a Tetley Bitter hat on – I felt like such a knob sometimes. It's the marketing, keeping sponsors happy, keeping the media happy – you just go with it.

"But I was excited about playing, and I was proud of playing. It was a massive decision and I couldn't have asked to play against a better country. I could have played against India or New Zealand and gone under the radar ... and part of you looks back 30 years later and wishes you had, in a way.

"But at the time, it felt like a huge challenge. These were guys (in the Australian team) that I'd grown up admiring and playing against in Shield cricket.

"I really thought at the time that I could make a difference to England and that was my challenge."

And he wasted little time in attempting to justify England's gamble.

With his very first ball in Test cricket, McCague beat Michael Slater – his old Academy teammate – for pace, striking him on the pad as the ball angled past leg stump. He had Slater playing and missing twice more in his opening overs, including a nasty delivery that reared off a length, just missed the edge and was taken at head height by wicketkeeper, Alec Stewart.

Image Id: 0D56CAC33E3A40F7BA401B5529EB90EE Image Caption: McCague shook up the Australians on Test debut // Getty

He then got a nick from a flat-footed Mark Taylor for his first Test wicket and struck both David Boon and Steve Waugh on the body before eventually dismissing them both, finishing the innings with 4-121.

Suddenly, no-one on the English side of the Ashes divide cared where McCague came from.

In an exhilarating and hostile opening spell of 13 overs, the crescendo from the Trent Bridge crowd when McCague ran in to bowl was as if it were Ian Botham or Bob Willis with ball in hand. In The Guardian, Mike Selvey wrote that McCague had "bowled as fast as anyone for England in years" and the new boy also drew comparisons to some other Australian Ashes firebrands of the past, Tibby Cotter and Keith Miller.

He wasn't able to bowl England to victory on the final day as the Australians held on for a draw, but McCague left Nottingham with his reputation enhanced and a second Test cap two-and-a-half weeks later all but assured.

***

It was a fast-bowling workload to make any current-day high-performance coach cringe. After getting through 51 overs on his Test debut and with 18 days before the next Test in Leeds, McCague crisscrossed the country. He played four matches in four cities for Kent, then headed abroad for a one-off game for an England XI against the Netherlands in Amsterdam.

In one respect, the frenetic schedule was de rigueur for a county cricketer at the time. In another, for a 24-year-old desperate to stake his claim as his country's next tearaway, it was a disaster waiting to happen.

Image Id: 4AFF0DC772974DACA8E4FD6B45AF348B Image Caption: An exhausted McCague at Trent Bridge // Getty

When McCague arrived at Headingley and re-joined the England squad, he felt he had nothing left to give.

"I didn't cruise (between Tests)," he says. "I wanted to be the guy who was this great white hope, and I was doing it for Kent and trying to do it for England as well.

"There was no rest, no respite. There was no wonder in the Headingley Test that the demand on my body resulted in a stress fracture."

Having been spanked in Leeds by a resurgent Australian line-up on their way to a 4-1 series win, McCague hobbled out of the series – and the rest of the summer – with a serious ankle injury.

But a little more than a year later, he would again be the unwilling antagonist in a vicious media storm, this time in the British press.

Having taken 54 wickets at just 17 in the 1994 county season, McCague was one of five fast bowlers picked for England's Ashes tour to Australia, but his selection ahead of the homegrown Angus Fraser was heavily criticised.

But it wasn't just the press who made McCague feel unwanted. As the tour got underway, it became apparent that several senior members of the England camp also wanted Fraser in the squad. And just to ram that message home, as England trained at the Gabba ahead of the opening Test of the summer, Fraser – who had been playing club cricket in Sydney – was flown to Brisbane to be a net bowler.

Image Id: 435A37867F4E436287F107C6BFB1832D Image Caption: Angus Fraser made a surprise appearance in the lead-up to the first Test // Getty

The Fraser incident was symptomatic of a troubling culture in the touring party, where the hierarchy was clearly evident by the fact some senior members would drive private cars, while the squad's less-established players had to ride on the team bus. McCague remembers one day in Perth when he was asked to tag along in a private car because, being back in his home city, he knew the way to training. At the end of the session, he was told to take his place back on the bus as his directions were no longer needed.

But the unwelcome environment in the England camp was only part of his problem. Before he'd even set foot on Australian soil again for the first time in two-and-a-half years, he had a target on his back.

At the immigration desk at Perth airport, he was unexpectedly greeted by the familiar face of an old teammate from South Perth Football Club. As they exchanged pleasantries, the tone of the conversation shifted ever so slightly.

"I'm not sure I should let you in, mate," the official said with a grin. "You turned your back on us."

It was only in hindsight that the exchange took on any significance.

"It was cheeky banter because he was a mate," McCague remembers. "But it did set the precedent for what was to come."

For the next six weeks, cries of 'traitor' from the public followed him everywhere he went, most of it harmless Ashes banter, but some of it with a much nastier tone.

Despite starting the tour solidly on the field, including figures of 5-31 in a tour game against South Australia, the physical strain was taking a toll as well. He nursed a sore shin through more than 75 overs in the three weeks leading up to the first Test and when England's spearhead Devon Malcolm was laid low by chickenpox, McCague was recalled to take his place.

Image Id: 890C333DDDD349CA83B277C1FF5ACBB4 Image Caption: McCague during a tour game against his old state team, WA // Getty

Whether it was his shin injury, an untimely bout of food poisoning, or (in his words) he "just bowled like crap", McCague's performance in that Test was an unmitigated disaster. In one horror spell in the afternoon on the opening day, he was hammered for 55 runs in just six overs as a rampant Slater guided Australia to a stumps score of 4-329, the highest first day Ashes total in almost a quarter of a century.

McCague leaked runs at almost five an over and while his figures were ugly (2-96 off 19.2), the environment created by a hostile Gabba crowd was even uglier. No Englishman was spared, but the fielding blunders of Phil Tufnell and the very Australian-ness of McCague meant they came in for special treatment.

"There was a section of the crowd that was pretty nasty, really," he remembers. "So much so that I gave a bit of lip back and one of them tried to run onto the park and got bundled to the ground. But that's what 20 XXXXs do to you on a sunny afternoon."

Among the handful of English supporters in the crowd that day was a 30-year-old tourist named Paul Burnham, who was stunned by what he witnessed.

"It blew me away, really," Burnham tells cricket.com.au. "It was very volatile, very abusive. You couldn't get away with it now – you'd be thrown out of the ground.

"I'd hate for it to come across that (English fans) are goody-goodies, but on that tour ... it was definitely a bit over-the-top with Martin, without a doubt."

By the end of the summer, inspired by the abuse McCague copped in that Test, Burnham co-founded an England supporter's group that would become known as the Barmy Army.

McCague was a broken man by match end, but relief came a week later with the news that his sore shin had been diagnosed as a stress fracture, and he was to head home. Apart from one final serve from that cab driver in Sydney, his nightmare was over.

"I was the happiest man alive," he remembers. "It was a relief."

***

But at the age of just 25, McCague felt his cards had been marked by the same men who had gambled on him less than two years earlier.

"As soon as I left that tour, I never ever spoke to anyone from the ECB again. Ever," he says. "No-one ever communicated to me what I had to do to get back in, nothing. So I just concentrated on Kent.

"I've got no idea why. Maybe I just wasn't as good as I thought I was. I know (in 1996) I took more wickets in county cricket than anyone except Courtney Walsh. I put the yards in, I showed them that I could stay fit for the whole season, but I never got a look-in after that. I'm not sure if that was down to the captain or management or what, and I never really found out.

"I could have contacted the ECB ... and taken that upon myself. But I didn't feel ready to. And I kind of felt the decision had already been made on that tour, and until the management or the team changed, there was no point."

While McCague was forgotten by the selectors, his implosion in that Gabba Test was more widely remembered, and he's been dogged ever since by claims he simply didn't have the fortitude for Test cricket.

Image Id: 02F57E18422D45F4BF002F19F3A1762B Image Caption: McCague packs his bags at the end of his 1994-95 campaign // Getty

In The Guardian at the time, David Hopps wrote that McCague's "absence with a stomach upset during the second innings was at best convenient", but the most hurtful remarks emerged years later from within the England camp. Head selector Ray Illingworth, who had controversially opted for McCague over Fraser, later noted "it came over that he wasn't a very tough character", while Darren Gough savaged his former teammate in his 2001 autobiography, all but accusing him of faking both his shin injury and his illness, saying "he lost a lot of respect that day and the lads weren't too sorry when he went home".

"I've never really had a chance to voice my side of the story," McCague says, adding Gough's criticism was never communicated to him directly.

"People have their opinions, but I know I was a competitive bastard, and that I was horrible to play against. I speak to people now and they say I was a nasty bastard on the pitch, and I never really got a chance to voice that when I played for England. I never got to be aggressive ... that opening spell (on debut) was the only time I ever had in Test cricket where I was able to let myself go.

"I don't think I ever fitted in, and I never felt safe in that England environment. At Kent, I felt safe and I felt like I was a leader. (For England) I just never felt like I belonged.

"The stuff that Goughy wrote took me aback because it was nothing near the truth. If you need to sell a book, sell a book. But keep it real. You respect people as players and you share a dressing-room, and then you see that. I'm not going to say I lost respect because he was a great player. But he didn't have to say things like that because they're not true.

"If people want to say I wasn't strong enough, so be it. But I proved myself at county level that I was a pretty decent bowler."

A former teammate and fierce rival at county level, England legend Alec Stewart, vouches for McCague's version of events.

"He played it tough, he had the odd word to say, and I personally wouldn't question his commitment," Stewart tells cricket.com.au.

"If he walked off (at the Gabba) because it got too much for him, of course that's ordinary. But I've got no proof of that. He's effectively got a busted leg, a stress fracture of the shin, and I've not had them, so I don't know the pain. So for me, that's a pretty cheap comment, especially if you haven't fronted the fellow up at the time.

"Goughy's one of my best mates, but that's not healthy if that chat has gone on because you don't know what a bloke's pain threshold is and what pain he was in. You've got to trust your teammate."

(Editor's note: cricket.com.au approached Darren Gough for an interview, but he did not respond)

Image Id: 00FC91A85DE94950B5380E51C599D7E2 Image Caption: McCague endured a torrid time on the 1994-95 Ashes tour // Getty

Rightly or wrongly, McCague's legacy as a Test failure has endured. In 2008, he was named in 'England's worst ever Test XI' by The Daily Mail and he has in some ways come to personify everything that was wrong with English cricket in the 1990s, a horror decade where more than half of their 59 debutants played five Tests or less.

Not even tales of McCague's drinking, which have famously endeared Ashes combatants to the public on both sides of the equator, could save his reputation (one story goes that he drank 72 pints of Guinness on a bucks weekend, while another has it that on the flight to Australia for the '94-95 tour, he was on track to break David Boon's iconic record of 52 cans of beer before team management ordered him to stop – he jokes now that given how the tour panned out, he should have kept going).

While the English media's reflections on his career have been harsh, the Australian press was comparatively silent in the ensuing two decades as a stream of Australian-born or -raised cricketers followed McCague into the England Test side.

Craig White – who was at the Academy with McCague in 1989 – was followed by Australia Under-19 representatives Alan Mullaly, Jason Gallian and Sam Robson, while the Hollioake brothers, Ben and Adam, both played for England having spent much of their childhood in Ballarat. Even Darren Pattinson, who was raised in Victoria alongside younger brother James and played for his home state before relocating to the UK, played a Test match for England in 2008. The heritage of these players was reported in the Australian press at the time, but none were labelled a rat or a traitor like McCague.

"I was the first one of an era because the rules allowed it," he says, acknowledging the game's eligibility criteria was changed not long after his debut.

"I broke that mould and made it much easier for them.

"They didn't seem to cop as much stick as me. They might have just refused interviews. I always felt like I was pushed in front of a camera to do interviews early doors because there was a huge uproar.

"There was a lot of media banter between the two countries and I was stuck in the middle of it. But I made it easier for everyone else to come and play for England."

***

English cricket may have moved on from McCague after that '94-95 tour, but he didn't move on from English cricket. After his county career ended in 2002 with more than 650 professional wickets to his name, he remained in Kent and played at club level until the age of 50, even sharing a field with his two English sons. And when his boys each won a spot as an overseas player abroad – just like their father had done all those years ago – McCague proudly made the journey back to Australia to watch them play.

Image Id: 6D2282BBA37C4D77B30AFA61307937FE Image Caption: McCague with sons Monte (left) and Clarry (right)

But his time as a professional, as a Test player, as the subject of numerous off-field Ashes wars has long past him, as has any resentment he once held.

"I'm still passionate about cricket ... but it's just a different chapter that I put aside," he says.

"I'm happy in my life and I've been successful in my life after cricket. I look back on it as a chapter that I absolutely enjoyed.

"I've got no resentment, I'm not bitter. I just wasn't good enough, and I've accepted that.

"I just wish that some people had told the truth.

"That's the thing that hurts the most."